According to a report from the Insurance Bureau of Canada, insurance losses from the Fort McMurray Wildfires in Northern Alberta are now expected to total C$3.58bn /US$2.76bn), making it the costliest insured natural disaster in Canadian history.
Insured losses from the Alberta Wildfires, which were first spotted on May 1st and which burned for nearly two months, have surpassed those from Canada's previous most expensive wildfires, Slave Lake in 2011, which caused more than C$700 million in insured losses. They are now Canada's most expensive natural disaster, having eclipsed the 1998 ice storm that struck Southern Quebec (approx. C$1.9bn/US$1.5bn in insured claims) and the 2013 floods in Southern Alberta (approx. C$1.8bn /US$1.4bn in insured claims).
An evacuation order for the Fort McMurray area that had been in place since May 3rd was lifted in the early June, allowing nearly 90,000 displaced residents to return home. Reports suggest that while roughly 2400 homes and other buildings were destroyed, nearly 90% of Fort McMurray was left intact.
According to the Government of Alberta, things are starting to get back to normal. The local hospital is now fully operational and, according to the municipality of Wood Buffalo's latest update, ATCO has re-lit 93 per cent of the buildings in the affected area (less than 1500 remain). However, boil water-advisories are still in effect for the hard-hit areas of Beacon Hill, Abasand and Waterways.
As of July 1st, Alberta's state of emergency, declared on May 4th, has been lifted and replaced by a regional state of emergency for the Municipality of Wood Buffalo.
The Alberta Wildfires raged over one million acres (1865 square miles) causing oil production to drop significantly. It is estimated that at their height, they resulted in daily oil production being cut by more than 1.5 million barrels.
According to Catastrophe Indices and Quantification, a company that compiles data on insured losses, to date, insurers in Canada have registered over 27,000 claims for personal property damage, averaging C$81,000 per claim, and more than 12,000 claims for vehicle related losses, averaging C$15,000 per claim. More than 5000 commercial insurance claims have been reported, with an average value exceeding C$250,000 per claim.
According to firefighters, it will take until summer 2017 to completely extinguish all of the fires.
Alberta Wildfires – July report
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